{"id":1086,"date":"2019-08-22T08:08:40","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T15:08:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1086"},"modified":"2019-08-21T08:12:53","modified_gmt":"2019-08-21T15:12:53","slug":"self-reliance","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/?p=1086","title":{"rendered":"Self Reliance"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Nethker Fire 8\/4\/2019<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

A lot of people have the dream of a cabin in the woods:\npeaceful, close to nature. But fire is a part of nature. Most folks woodsy\ncabin dream doesn\u2019t feature a 50-yard cleared \u201cdefensible zone\u201d. But hey, it is\nyour property. You should be defending it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back when I fought fires I couldn\u2019t believe all the\nman-hours spent by Forest Service crews protecting cabins in the wilderness.\nI\u2019ll never forget the sight of a rolled over tanker truck after a direct retardant\nhit from a C 130 on a fire in the chaparral in California. All this to protect\na dilapidated shed in the bottom of a canyon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As the Nethker fire up near Burgdorf Hot Springs in Idaho\nCounty slowly grew in the last couple weeks, some home owners got the word from\nthe Forest Service that \u201cstructure protection\u201d was not their priority. It seems\nthe shared agreement between Idaho County and the USFS had not been renewed.\nWhen the property owners appealed to Idaho County officials for support\nCommissioner Skip Brandt gave them the news:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople who choose to live where there are no tax or\nsubscription based fire protection districts and where it can be difficult to\nget insurance must realize that there are risks involved and that a key\ncomponent of private property rights is personal responsibility.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He\u2019s right. Folks\ncan form fire districts, vote to tax themselves and spend the money they\ncollect from themselves according to district governance. But I\u2019m not sure I\u2019d\nwant to pay my taxes for a rural cabin I cleared around when my neighbor let\nthe pine needles pile up on his shingle roof. But that gets around to how you\nstructure your governance.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

People come to\nthese agreements with sewer districts, water districts, highway districts. Sometimes\nsharing a cost for a valued service is worth it.  But expecting to be rescued as the brush\nburns closer to your wood pile is too big a stretch for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The State of Idaho\nhas shared agreements with both the USFS, Bureau of Land Management and other\nentities. This shared agreement means if a fire starts on BLM land and they\ndispatch resources, when the fire spreads onto Idaho State land and they keep\nfighting it, they will send a bill to the state for these expenses. I guess\nIdaho County Commissioners saw no real up-side for sharing in these expenses. I\nhave no opinion about that decision. But I sure agree with Commissioner Brandt\nnot sending the cavalry to save every threatened structure. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Maybe I\u2019m biased\nby a family history. My grandfather Henry had ranches along the rugged Wildhorse\nRiver near Brownlee Dam. It was the end of haying season and the second cutting\nwas stacked, the fields were stubble and it was a dry August. He thought the\nfire started down by No Business Creek where some fishermen had been that\nmorning. He, Grandma Helena and his hired hand plowed furrows around the\nhaystacks and they tried to beat back the flames with wet gunny sacks. The\nBasin Ranch was surrounded by BLM and Forest Service land so a plane came over\nin the afternoon and dropped a stick of jumpers up above the house a quarter\nmile from the slowing flames. No wind had kicked up, it was looking like things\nwould be OK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But the plane\nlost an engine as it circled and couldn\u2019t climb out of the canyon. It came back\naround and tried to land in the 400-acre hayfield. But it nosed down and\ntumbled, killing both pilot and copilot and now extending the fire for another\ncouple hundred acres off to the west and north. Henry only lost a couple\nhaystacks. The house and barn were OK. He never had much good to say about\nfishermen after that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Living off by\nyourself demands some self-sufficiency. It\u2019s hard to build shared resources\nwhen you can\u2019t see the lights of your neighbor.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A lot of people have the dream of a cabin in the woods: peaceful, close to nature. But fire is a part of nature. Most folks woodsy cabin dream doesn\u2019t feature a 50-yard cleared \u201cdefensible zone\u201d. But hey, it is … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1086"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1088,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1086\/revisions\/1088"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1086"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1086"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/danschmidtforsenate.com\/blog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1086"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}